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When we first started playing we did a lot of rehearsing. We used to write out everything. In fact, that's the way everybody rehearses: we play the tunes and improvise.

Even if you're improvising, the fact that beforehand you know certain things will work helps you make those improvisations successful. It really helps to have a certain amount of knowledge about musical structure.

A friend of mine once told me that I can't screw up when I play my own music. I also take voice lessons, play other peoples' songs out of music books, and occasionally figure out how to play other people's music from records. This keeps my ears, fingers, and mind working.

Practicing is not only playing your instrument, either by yourself or rehearsing with others - it also includes imagining yourself practicing. Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining the task or actually doing it.

Improvising is wonderful. But, the thing is that you cannot improvise unless you know exactly what you're doing. That's a kind of paradoxical thing about improvising.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I'm blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

I've been studying on my own. I'm not really trained. I went to school for about a year and a half. I never really studied music, but, I mean, I did. I studied for two years, maybe.

You have to do a lot of listening, you don't just learn out of yourself.

Every day, you have to make three hours of music, just randomly improvising, and that's a great way to weed stuff out.

You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That's jazz.